ohmelads

And if he gets injured? It's only a few weeks, you don't normally sign a third player for one position to cover a hamstring injury. I can only assume Kadar will switch to RB, Aanholt will be LB and the other three will compete for the central two slots.

What does this mean for Kadar? Surely he could have covered Enrique for a few weeks. Or is he going to switch to right back again with this lad on the left, and one of OneSize and Williamson on the bench?

If that's the case then a loan is an option but we still need one ASAP now. We've left ourselves in this position. If we go down the loan route (which is most likely under Ashley) then I would hope it's another player in the mould of Simpson - someone young but experienced who is looking to secure a permanent move.

This is what happens when you have a 46-game season and have to field first team players in the cups because your squad is too small. It is ridiculous that nothing has been done to provide cover. We now have an untried kid to come in at centre back with no cover whatsoever. Our season was always going to depend on incidents like this. Ashley has a week to pull his finger out and give the squad some much needed reinforcements.

Beckford will get his move in the summer but it won't be us. I know nowt about the lad but he has been to Old Trafford and White Hart Lane with a much inferior team and scored and looked hungry and confident all game. He doesn't look fazed by the big stage at all and seems to thrive on it. It would be too unlike Newcastle to sign an English player bang on form at the height of his career. It is just not our transfer policy these days and pretty much unthinkable under Ashley. He's bound to cost less than his value with 6 months on his contract. In a way the signing made too much sense. I don't want to make snap judgements on a couple of games but I won't hide my disappointment that we missed out on this. Gut feeling is he will get his move and do a job in the Premier League.

I agree, although drawing and losing to a title rival will hurt the confidence and pride a bit. So long as we beat Palace this will be quickly forgotten. The 5th round will hopefully be a distraction for West Brom.

2 pens and a red? F*ck sake, that's us dealt with. Considering some of the tackles West Brom got away with the other night as well, they went into that game to injure us. 4-1 now. Need a big performance against Crystal Palace.

They are and they were last season. But you defend as a team. If you dominate possession and put teams on the back foot you will keep more clean sheets. The defence is too good for this league as it has shown. The problems we have are further up the pitch. We may be top but we don't dominate games in this league like we should. We have a consistent injury-free back four which is something we haven't had in ages. The same players week in week out, it makes a big difference espescially at the back. In the Premier League they will come up against strikers who don't miss sitters and quicker teams with better movement, so it is important we have more control of games and are better at keeping possession. This is where our midfield in particular let us down last season and isn't helping this campaign either. The other issue is cover. An injury to any of our back four and what is our backup? There's nothing there. R.Taylor for right back perhaps, but we definitely need cover.

I'd say he has more chance of getting in the England team out wide. We have competition wide right as well but Milner brings qualities the others don't. People talk about playing people out of position but Milner is very versatile, he has played for years out wide, most of his career in fact, and I believe this is where he would play for England.

Don't know the ins and outs of it but I think Benitez trying all summer to sign Barry 12 months earlier convinced Alonso to move on. Benitez didn't handle that situation well at all. I don't believe Alonso was the glue keeping it all together though. He was just a good player in a good team, and he is missed. But I think Torres has been a bigger miss and he seems to be Liverpool's only forward that scares opposition teams. Everything the team did went through him last season and he reminded me a bit of Henry at Arsenal in his heyday, the way their attacks revolved around one outstanding player. But amidst all the praise, did Benitez consider a contingency for losing his star player? They don't appear to have a plan B in case he gets injured. It's hard to say how Rodriguez will turn out but he's not a natural out and out striker and is unlikely to solve this problem. Who knows, he may recapture his form but he seems to be a bit of a panic signing.

I agree with that article and I think Milner deserves a place at the world cup. He's a real team player who will do the donkey work which you don't always get from wingers, he will run all day but he has quality and he does the simple things well. His game has come on a lot since his early days, his crossing is better and his runs are better - he's a much more intelligent player than he used to be. You won't get any showboating from him, he is direct and will put balls into the danger area first time. I remember in his younger days with us he would try to beat the defender three times before putting a cross in, he used to cut back and cut back again and by the time he put it into the penalty area half a dozen players were back to defend it. Now it seems Villa have taught that out of him and he is more about one and two touch football as yesterday's goal showed. He is versatile and would be a good option to have on the bench. If we are up against a dangerous winger he is someone who will track back and help us defend as a team. Lennon would be my first choice but Milner should certainly be in the squad because he brings those qualities.

I see BBC Sport have went out of their way to mention our low attendance twice on their writeups. Funnily enough they have failed to mention our other attendances all season. I wonder why? Edit: They're now praising Liverpool for getting 30,000.

It's an easy conclusion to come to but if you live in other cities you realise we're not the only ones who target players who are struggling. I went to uni in Liverpool a few years back and they gave plenty abuse to their sh*tter players like Biscan, Salif Diao, and even in the season they won the CL, Traore was given plenty of criticism and cries of 'for f*ck sake' every time he dropped a bollock. Similarly many fans had little patience for Houllier, and prior to their winning CL run, the season they finished 5th, many fans doubted Benitez. The difference really was that they signed players that were both talented, cared and were injury-free and we didn't. Our better players like Woodgate and Dyer were never fit, while those who had talent and tried such as Bellamy were loved by most toon fans. Even Robert, who was as frustrating as they come, was appreciated for the quality he could produce. Most fans appreciate quality and desire and when we have a player with both we love them like any other club. Sadly Bellamy was utterly mishandled by Souness, Robert lost interest, Shearer retired, the crocks like Dyer and Woodgate missed too many matches, Solano became old and we were on the wane. These were the big factors that cost the club dearly, and the signing of Owen and a number of other flops at considerable expense rapidly accelerated our decline. It's easy to point to the fans but while this club has 'broken' some players it has made others. If you look at players like Les Ferdinand or Ginola, or more recently Robert or Bellamy, their careers really took off when they joined us. Milner was not given harsh treatment by our fans at all, the mistake was probably in loaning him out to a rival Premier League club where he developed as a footballer, settled in and wanted to stay. If you look at other clubs they give their struggling players a hard time. Lucas at Liverpool, or Pascal Cygan who was a joke figure at Arsenal, there are loads of examples. The difference wasn't the fans but the management of the situation. Getting the best out of your players, moving them on at the right time and bringing in the right players, is the mark of a good manager. If you look at my examples of players who exceeded at Newcastle they were brought in and managed by good managers.

I'd love to see Shearer ply his trade somewhere else first. I believe he can be a big manager here but wouldn't want him to jump into the job for obvious reasons. Let him make his mistakes elsewhere and build up a profile, contacts, methods and all the rest of it, and if he cuts it he can come to us a seasoned manager.

Spot on. You only have to look at Man City to see that good individuals don't automatically make a good defence. They have top class defenders with pace, power and experience but they let in bucketloads because they don't defend as a unit or as a team. Of course defences need a leader and it's true that they can leak goals when a key man is taken out, but I think that's often as much to do with the unit losing its balance and understanding. You rarely see one defender come in and shake up a leaky back four do you? A defence is a unit and this season Coloccini has been part of a solid unit - he deserves credit for that. We should keep mind of the level we're playing at mind. He may well get exposed in the Premiership again, but I'd give him a chance on this season's form, keeping the same back four always builds an understanding. We were once playing Champions League football with Andy O'Brien for f*ck sake - it's about building a unit which has a strong understanding and for the first time in years we might just have that. Should promotion come and the rebuilding starts then let's get some defensive cover before we go selling, and get some midfielders in.

What I like is that we'd be signing a player on the rise. We could always go with proven mediocrity, or someone on his way down from mediocrity such as a Harewood. I'd rather take a player with his best years ahead of him. You have to either take a punt on these players or sign the finished article and we are in no position to do the latter. I would rather take the punt on Beckford than land another Premiership journeyman or a big ego looking for a final payday. I think this is pretty low-risk if we can get him on the cheap. His contract is running out and Leeds know they have to sell, not to mention a player coming from league one would probably not expect astronomical wages. There's an element of risk to every signing, but I have a good feeling about this one - he's in form and very high in confidence. He showed no fear at Old Trafford which is more than can be said for a lot of our players in recent years.

I like the way Capello has handled it. Only players fit and in form will be on the plane to South Africa - those are his principles and he has by and large stuck to them. In the past we had a wealth of good centre backs and good midfielders but the first teamers knew who they were. Come the big tournaments you always felt there was a bit of complacency. We now seem to have genuine competition for places in several areas, particularly right wing and noone feels assured of their place. That's the way it should be - players should feel privileged to have earned their place among fierce competition and wear the shirt with pride. In recent years I think we have lost that. People need to stop judging Owen off what he did 5 or 10 years ago. That's a bloody long time in football. Judge him off the last two years or indeed the last two months. Look at his fitness, his goals, his playing time and his team play and who can seriously tell me he deserves to be on the plane to the world cup? It would go against what Capello is trying to create and that's why I am confident he will not be going to the world cup.

Another player leeching massive amounts of money from the club and contributing absolutely nothing. Glad to see the back of him.

Relieved it's not the f*cking mackems. Not really any tasty ties there.

Be interesting to see how the two teams line up.

So you accept it could f*ck up our season. More games often means more injuries. We have 46 games in the Championship, not 38. That means 8 more games than Premier league clubs. It means midweek fixtures all over the place. West Brom and Notts Forest would love to see us go on a cup run. I can't deny I would too, but that's because I'm a fan thinking with the heart and not the head. Thinking with the head for a second, we're taking our chances with this squad and we all know the consequences if we don't go up. Look at our squad and how our youngsters got on against Peterborough. We haven't got the squad for it - 2 centre backs and 2 wingers is not enough.

It won't do much for morlae but I'd hope it'd act as a f***ing wake up call. Half of them strut around that pitch like they're too good that they don't have to put in much effort. We have been s*** this season, and haven't even stepped out of 2nd gear. If we carry on as we are, Hughton will think he's a tactical god, Ashley will think he has a team that can win the PL, and the likes of Nolan and Butt will think they're Champions League standard players. A defeat by a decent PL side would be a slap in the face and tell them to pull their fingers out and actually put some effort in. That's one way of looking at it. Or they could just wilt under the criticism and feel sorry for themselves. We saw them do it last season - that final day against Villa was a disgrace and they'd had slaps in the face all season. I can only ever want us to win, but I would take a good look at our squad before getting excited about the prospect of a cup run. Two injuries could turn our season around - take out Taylor and Nolan and it could be the difference between 1st and 3rd. We have been fortunate with injuries so far this year - we have no cover in central defence at all and only two natural wingers. We saw what happened last time Taylor and Colo got crocked - our lead at the top is still a slender one if you ask me and I think people are forgetting that a couple of key injuries would cripple us. This season is all about the bigger picture. I will always want us to win but I wouldn't shed any tears if we bowed out the FA Cup early and won the championship.

It's pretty obvious that drawing the mackems would be horrible when you look at the two squads. No they're nothing special themselves, but they have a number of players who would walk into our team. A defeat by the mackems, espescially an embarassing one, could crumble our season, not to mention we'd never hear the end of it. You'd have to be nuts to want to play them right now.

Those Ferguson quotes confirm what we already knew - which was that Owen was only ever meant to be a bit-part player who would come off the bench now and again, in much the same way Solskjaer was used.

I disagree. From my experience (purely guts, not done the statistics) - top Championship strikers have much higher failure rate than top Championship defenders in the Premiership. A lower league striker would only succeed in the Premiership if he has an outstanding attribute. I don't see how Jermain Beckford is outstanding in any particular attribute (apart from scoring), it is simply too much an ask/expectation for him to score regularly in Premiership in my opinion. We need Beckford to replace Harewood, but I am worried that we would spend too much on him for essentially half season of productive work. All fair points but I would assume his outstanding attribute is finishing. I don't know anything about him other than today's game and what others have said, but if he is a fox in the box he might well give us something vital that we don't have already - and a key ingredient for staying up if he's good enough. Following on with your logic, we know Newcastle will not afford (or attract?) a striker who has scored that many at the top level. We can either take a punt on someone who has done it in the lower leagues with a point to prove, or take someone who has not quite done it at a higher level. OR go for a foreigner who ticks one of those boxes. Personally, I'd rather have the form player, if our past signings are anything to go by. Bellamy was an inspired signing and when you look at our other attempts, maybe we are better off going down that road, espescially when you look at the potential fees involved.